The Literacy Block Needs Technological Rewiring.

The structure offers stability by moving from dependence to independence based on the learners' needs.
The structure offers fluidity in that the overlap and pacing can be adjusted for different groups of students and individual students.

Critical Elements of the Literacy Block

I provide at least 20 minutes per day of silent, in-class reading.
I conference with each student as a reader during this 20 minute period. During this time, each student and I track:
- book(s) he/she is reading
- the Accelerated Reading level of the book(s) & overall progress toward meeting his/her AR goal
- whether he/she is enjoying the book(s)
- questions he/she has about the book

Our first 1st semester novel studies take place during read-aloud time.
Our 2nd semester novel studies take the place of our read-aloud time; although, we still read-aloud part of this time with the novel.
I use novel studies to:
- pre-teach and reinforce reading comprehension and literary concepts learned in direct reading instruction
- promote the reading of high-quality literature and the work of master authors
- build a classroom culture of reading and discussion
- verbally do the difficult work of responding to literature

We begin literature circles when all pre-planned reading comprehension skills have been explicitly taught/reinforced.
Literature circles provide the in-depth, student-driven discussion of literature and novels.
These circles reinforce each student as a reader who leads and contributes to a rich discussion.

http://shelleywright.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/flipping-blooms-taxonomy/